Queen Elizabeth In A Midsummer Night's

Political figures take on an important role when it comes to shaping a nation. This job comes with a reverent status that grants them the ability to be perceived by those below them in the highest regard. Those under the rule the person at power feel the need to do whatever they possibly can in order to show their utmost respect and devotion to their ruler. Sixteenth Century Protestant ruler, Queen Elizabeth became one of these rulers that had quite the following of loyal subject; among these were poets, Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare. Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream both view Queen Elizabeth with a respectful, almost deified lense because of her chastity and sovereign status as

(Norton 406).
With all of this in mind, it is evident that the Faerie Queene acts as an admirable symbol of Queen Elizabeth’s sovereignty and overall gloriousness —she is even dubbed “Gloriana”, which derives from the word “glorious”. Redcrosse sets out on the adventure and continues to hope that something exciting will happen so that he can have the honor of making his queen proud. Instead of presenting Queen Elizabeth as personified characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare alludes to her in a way to show her true strength as a chaste leader. This worship is brought about by Oberon, king of the fairies, who tells Robin Goodfellow, a puck, the origins of the magical, love-potion-laced flower that he needs so that he can get revenge on his wife, Titania, for keeping a little Indian boy away from him. In regards to this, Oberon claims the following:
[One] very time [he] saw (but [Robin Goodfellow] couldst not)
Flying between the cold moon and the Earth,
Cupid all armed, A certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the

He does this by addressing Augustus directly —fully assuming that he is, in fact, reading his poem— and compares the king of the gods’ worth to his by pointing out that “just as your people’s loyal devotion is welcome to you, Augustus, so was his subjects’ to Jove” (Ovid I.205). Augustus Caesar was known to be one of the strongest and most effective emperors of Rome so there is no surprise that there would be such a loyal following by his people; especially a following that could be compared to Thundering Jove, the most sovereign of all of the Greco-Roman gods. The comparison views Augustus Caesar in a deifying light as if he were of the same status of a god. Much later in the Metamorphoses, Ovid tells of Rome and all of its significant leaders. Here, it is acknowledged that Augustus is not the biological son of Julius Caesar, but his great-nephew, however, this did not change anything about Augustus since he was still “so glorious a son - a leader, with whom at the head of our empire, / the gods have showered the riches of blessings on all mankind” (Ovid XV.758-759). Saying that Augustus is such a glorious leader that he must be a gift from the gods is the greatest compliment because showing him as such makes him the greatest gift that one can receive. Ovid